


Offer Me Alternatives

by Delancey_Facade



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2039220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delancey_Facade/pseuds/Delancey_Facade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sure, the end of the world's as good of a time to talk about your feelings as any.</p><p>(Now with a sequel!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

"This ain't... actually it, is it?" Red asked, panting.

Sparks didn't answer, just fired another volley of shots, then tossed his pistol aside. "Out of laser bullets."

"I been out for minutes already."

"All of my techno arrows have been expended."

Sparks leaned back against the mesa they were sheltered behind, tipped his hat up and wiped his brow. "That thing ain't even paying attention to us anymore."

"Too busy obliterating huge chunks of the planet."

"If this destruction continues apace, G'loot Praktaw will be reduced to vaporous forms of its elemental components with thirty Earth minutes. It is likely we will expire of asphyxiation or direct obliteration within ten."

"Ugh, thanks Croach. Super helpful, having a timeline for when we're gonna bite it."

"Shut up, Sparks. How about you two stop fighting for the last ten minutes we're still alive."

"I was not--" Croach began.

"Seriously!" Red burst out. A few seconds of silence followed, pierced only by the screeching tearing noise of cosmic energy dissolving huge swaths of the landscape.

Sparks cleared his throat, and looked over with a glint of oration in his gaze. "Well, if it's come to this, suppose I should probably tell you two... Ain't nobody on the planet I'd rather have ridden with and fought with and... I guess gotten zapped into space dust by a cosmic threat with than y'all. You're... I mean... Both of you, you're my best..."

"Spit it out, Nevada, we ain't got all day."

"Fine! You're my... best friends or whatever. Both of you."

Red patted him on the shoulder. "Thanks. Suppose when I pictured how I'd go out, it was in a blaze of glory with you two fellas. Ain't particularly glorious, hiding behind a rock, but it ain't as bad as it could be. Metaphorically speaking. Actually speaking, it pretty much is exactly as bad as it could be."

"Do humans frequently fantasize about their demises?"

"Eh... Kinda?" Red said with a shrug.

"How is that possibly a sustainable trait in a species?"

"Probably not the time to have that discussion, buddy," Sparks cut in. "Any last word type stuff you wanna share with the group?"

Croach stared at Sparks, then Red, for a few precious seconds, lips pursed and eyebrow raised in that way he had when he was trying to parse a situation slightly beyond him. Then he spoke. "Due to the alacrity of this threat and the certainness of our demise, I am feeling within myself the emotional imperative to admit that I have... romantic feelings for both of you."

Another beat of silence among them, ruined by another sickening screech of ancient volcanoes being atomized and absorbed.

"Wait, what?' Sparks asked blankly.

“I, Croach the Tracker, have developed nascent romantic feelings for you, Sparks Nevada, over the past several cycles and continue to have romantic feelings for you, the Red Plains Rider. I am unsure of the extent of these feelings due to past incompatibilities and a lack of evident reciprocation, but I… regret that I shall never find out due to imminent vaporization. And/or asphyxiation.”

“Wait… whaaat?”

Red rolled her eyes. “Ugh, he knows what you mean,” she told Croach. “I… uh… reckon I been in love with the both of you at different times, even though it ain’t never worked out. And maybe there’s a bit of me that still is, only I never seen the sense in riding down those paths again on account of being bucked off hard more than once. Though… that don’t seem like such a terrible hurdle in the face of… y’know, dyin’ and all now.” She reached out with both hands and grabbed one of each of theirs.

“You sure you ain’t like… confusing friendship type feelings for romantic ones, Croach?” Sparks asked evasively, then winced when Red’s grip went vicelike.

“Dang it, Nevada, he ain’t asking you on a date. This is endtimes confession stuff.”

“Okay, yeah, fine. Whatever. It ain’t actually that surprising to know. Or… the worst thing to hear right now.”

“I would be under onus to you for that implied acceptance.”

“Yeah, sure. Anyway, Red… You know I’ve pretty much been in love with you this whole time, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, good. Everyone’s square with the confessions now, right?”

Red and Croach nodded.

“So… Bye, I guess.”

Their joined hands squeezed just a bit tighter in anticipation of…

Of…

“We ain’t dead yet,” Sparks noted.

“And the vaporizing noises stopped.”

“I perceive a familiar presence…”

Cautiously, they let go of each other and crept around the mesa. What was left of the plains of Mars was silent and empty save for a luminescent being. The missing landscape was gently rebuilding itself in streams of light, rock formations generating like ice crystals in the still afternoon air.

“What…”

“It is the human designated The Barkeep, who possess the Force Galactic,” Croach cut in.

“But... The town was the first thing the planet-eater got to. Everybody got--”

“No town, no rule against using my powers in it, far as I can see,” Mordecai said, suddenly right beside them. The three of them flinched in unison, but he continued on. “Got kinda dicey there for a microsecond, but it ain't like I never been disintegrated and remade from the ether before."

"So… basically you could have stopped this particular thing, like, immediately when it started happening, but you didn't cause of your wife's rule?” Sparks pointed out acidly.

“That, and also there are things you gotta let happen before you can make it so other things didn't happen, or the universe fabric'll unweave on you.” Mordecai waved a glowing hand vaguely. “It’s... about three levels of explanation beyond where words can take you. You gotta possess the Force Galactic before you understand it a little and even then it ain’t all that clear.”

“Ugh, you did this on purpose, didn’t ya?” Red crossed her arms.

“Did what?” It was hard to tell if he was playing at innocence or not, with his voice all echoey and ethereal due to being a conduit of galactic energy.

“Nevermind what,” Sparks said quickly. “I’m just gonna… forget all of this ever happened. Thanks for saving Mars, Barkeep, and can we have, like, a minute of privacy here?”

“Suit yourselves.” He stopped being there, and was over in the distance on the plain again.

“...Is this to be another event that is forbidden from discussion?”

“No,” Red said quickly. “No, I think we have to discuss it a lot.”

“Come on, do we have to?”

“Dang it, Nevada, you just faced down certain death and now you’re running from a conversation?”

“Okay, can we not right now? Like, maybe let’s just take a second to be glad we ain’t currently a bunch of miscellaneous molecules floating around in space right now?”

“...Alright.” She rubbed the back of her neck, then glanced around a bit. There was a ridge of rock nearby that was about suitable for sitting on, so she did, and Sparks and Croach joined her.

“Hey. Croach. Ain’t you under onus to the Barkeep now?” Sparks asked after a couple minutes of silence.

“It is impossible to be under onus to the Force Galactic. But as you originally led the first resistance, which allowed events to fall into place as necessary for the intervention of the same, I am under onus to you, Sparks Nevada.”.

“Oh. Okay.”

The three of them watched Olympus Mons remake itself out on the horizon.

  
  



	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A later one-shot in this same canon-divergent universe. And another one that came out of IM jokes that just became... seriouses, I guess.

"The Marshal Station doors are open," the A.I. trilled as the slight pneumatic hiss of opening was lost in a rising shout.

"Marshal! Marshal! Haaaaaaaaaaa--" Felton bounded inside, then stopped short as he caught sight of Sparks, Red and Croach, seated separately around the main pen of the station. "Oh. Ah... Huh."

Sparks set his space pen down on the report he'd been filling out. "Alright, Felton, what's got you hollering and also mysteriously stopping hollering?"

"Oh! Well. The thing is my cattle done got rustled again, which I don't have to tell you is a thing what happens often enough that you might set your watch by it, iffen you had the sort of watch what was set by occurrences happening several times a year on a regular basis, which now that I am saying aloud, I realize describes a calendar more'n a watch only that ain't an expression and the other one is, and even though it's a bit muddier fact-wise, ain't the whole point of metaphorical expression to get across a broader idea in fewer words, that idea being 'my cattle done got rustled again like often happens, Marshal, halp.'"

"Okay, yeah, reckon whoever rustled 'em ain't likely gone off planet and shouldn't be hard to track. Now what about the other thing?"

"Oh, um... It's nothing, probably?"

"Don't sound like nothing," Red said cooly, regarding him for a long moment from under the brim of her hat.

"Well," Felton began, sounding a touch flustered, "it's just the three of y'all, I'm kinda sensing some vibes here? Like... Like vibes?"

"No being within this building is emitting vibrations," Croach pointed out. "It is not within my many physiological capabilities, nor, to my current awareness, within those of humans." He paused for a dubious second. "...Do humans possess such capabilities?"

"No, Croach, shush--" Sparks said quickly.

"It is not an unreasonable query--"

"Yes it is, now hang on a second. Felton, you care to elaborate on the particular metaphorical vibes you claim to be reading?"

"Like tension only it ain't so much tension as much as a bunch of tension that was there not being there so much anymore? Like y'all maybe had a fight or... another thing happened?"

"Yeah," Red said. "Had a fight. Kind that cleared up any tension-type feelings. Real productive, that fight. Though I might be fixing for another one should that become a topic of conversation among other folks ‘round these parts. Reckon I could clear up that sort of tension too."

"Duly noted. So my cattle...?"

"We're on it," Sparks said shortly, standing up. "Been a few days since we had some proper outlaw-catching style of trouble, ain’t it?"

“It has been five synodic periods and eight Earth hours since an arrest was made.”

“You countin’ now, Croach?” Red asked lightly, picking up her laser rifle holster from the back of her chair and strapping it on her back with practiced ease.

“Perhaps...”

“Maybe we got more law than there is trouble that needs stopping as of late. Say it’s getting boring around here.”

“Whaaat?” Sparks cut in. “Didn’t you just hear that there’s been a cattle rustling? Besides, something big comes along… like, every month or so, at least.”

“Slow month so far.”

“Yeah, well, reckon you better stay sharp for when trouble shows up, then.”

“Reckon I might go looking for it myself.”

She smirked at him and Sparks opened his mouth to answer, then looked over at Felton, who had been regarding these exchanges with a faint air of incredulity. “You, uh, need something else there, Felton?”

“Nope, no, just the thing about my cattle gettin’ stole, is all. I’ll just be… going away now.”

“Right. Same. Come on, you two, let’s ride,” Sparks said over his shoulder to Red and Croach, already striding towards the door.

***

“The Saloon Doors are open. Hello, Felton.”

“Howdy, Doors.” He walked up to the bar, where Mordecai was endlessly polishing glasses.

“Well, howdy there, Felton,” he greeted. “You take that trouble of yours with your cattle to the Marshal?”

“Yep, done that. So there ain’t much else to be done here in town, so… Hey, speaking of the Marshal and also Croach and Red--”

“Now Felton, if you’re asking me to use my Force Galactic to pry into people’s personal lives just for the purposes of gossip and curiosity-satisfying--”

“I didn’t say that--”

“Now lemme finish. You don’t gotta ask because I already done that and it is exactly what you’re thinking.”

"I knew it!"

"If you knowed it so much, you shoulda bet better in the pool. The Widow Johnson beat you by a space mile and won."

"Well, I'll be sure to tell her that later, then."

The Saloon A.I. sighed. "I was sure my calculations were going to be correct. I suppose love defies mathematics."

"More like stubbornness defying mathematics, iffen you ask me," Mordecai interjected, looking up from pouring. "Which, fair play, you didn't."

"Barkeep, you didn't Force-Galactic romance type things into happening, didja?"

"Strictly speaking, most everything what happens on Mars's got at least an indirect causal correlation to my Force-Galacticing, but no. That'd take the fun outta it."

"Yeah, prolly would at that," Felton remarked philosophically. The Barkeep set Felton's usual drink order on the bar and went back to glass polishing. Felton took a sip and settled in to wait for news.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This definitely started as a joke in IM that the only way these dum-dums would confess their feelings was the actual apocalypse, and even then... eh.


End file.
